From Pokémon to The International, Dota 2

Su Xiaoman stretched on her large bed, which was more than two meters wide. She had already contacted the two brothers, and was still missing one.

But suddenly feeling a little sleepy, she decided to take a nap, since there was no rush. Su Xiaoman put her phone aside, turned off the desk lamp, and crawled into bed.

Meanwhile, in Jiangxia's rented apartment.

Jiang Xia's parents sat on the bed, their backs ramrod straight. One of them held Jiang Xia's report card from the previous semester, while the other was giving her a lecture.

"Jiang Xia, your grades this semester have dropped slightly compared to last semester. Have you been playing games too much? Although you can earn a little money through live streaming, as a student, you should prioritize your studies and listen to your teachers, understand?"

Jiang Xia sat at the table, his back ramrod straight, staring blankly ahead.

"understood."

His father nodded in satisfaction, picked up his teacup, took a sip of tea, and continued:

"Actually, we've never really approved of you renting a place outside. Living on campus with your classmates allows you to improve together, and even if your roommates aren't studious, you're closer to the school library. We're worried that if you live alone outside, you might pick up bad influences from those friends online."

That doesn't make much sense. Does living at school mean you won't go astray? But Jiang Xia wouldn't argue back. He knew that no matter if he was right or wrong, the best thing to do at that moment was to nod and say he understood.

"Alright, it's almost lunchtime. Take us to your school cafeteria for a taste."

The three of them arrived at the cafeteria of Jiangxia University. It was no longer lunchtime, and there weren't many students. They chose a quiet spot on the edge of the cafeteria and sat down. Jiangxia went to get some stir-fries.

Just as they were about to eat, Jiang Xia's phone rang.

"Jiang Xia, the Immortal Cup is coming up soon. I'm the captain. I'm planning to bid for you, Lu Chen, and Gu Ran at the auction. How about the four of us brothers team up?"

It was a text message from Su Xiaoman, asking if the Immortal Cup was recruiting people... But it's hard to say whether you can win all the bids for something like this, since there are too many uncertainties.

Just as Jiang Xia was deep in thought, a deep voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Jiang Xia, don't look at your phone while eating!"

Jiang Xia reflexively put away her phone and started eating in silence. The three of them ate their entire lunch in silence without saying a word.

After finishing his meal and returning to his rented room, Jiang Xia took out his phone to reply to Su Xiaoman while using the restroom:

"It would be great if we could go together, but there are a lot of uncontrollable factors in the auction process, so it all depends on your abilities, Miss Su."

Meanwhile, several top streamers in the Dota 2 community who received the approximate list began privately inquiring about the recent performance of their favorite players on the list and whether they wanted to join their teams.

Although theoretically, once a contestant is selected, they must join the team without having the option to refuse, it can still be helpful to sound out their intentions beforehand.

Five days later, the full roster for the Immortal Cup Season 4 was announced on Weibo, sparking heated discussions among netizens:

There are eight team captains participating in the competition. They are: sora, maybe, chalice, DY, yyf, zhou, Xie Bin dd, and zsmj.

Among them, Su Xiaoman and yyf did not participate in the competition but only served as captains. The other six participated in the competition and served as captains. Their starting funds, after deducting their original value, were: maybe 800,000, chalice 600,000, DY 200,000, zhou 150,000, Xie Bin dd, and zsmj 100,000.

Each team starts with 2.5 million virtual funds. These funds are used to purchase players, build the team, and compete in four stages: training matches, round-robin matches, knockout matches, and an offline tournament, to determine the champion.

The list of participants is as follows:

Position 1: xs, monet, lou, zhou, sylar, oldchicken, baqi, hao

Position 2: maybe, Infinite, White Scholar, Jump Jump, setsu, Ori, 7e, firefly

Position 3: chalice, jt, inflame, yang, OP, tzy, Lao Shiyi, Huaqiang

Position 4: boboka, xinq, kaka, fy, pyw, tk, 绵绵, shikamaru

Position 5: zsmj, Xie Bindd, DY, redpanda, Jiang An, qyqx, LaNm, oldfang

The bidding rules for the competition were also announced. The competition will determine the ownership of each contestant through five rounds of bidding. The first round is an open auction, in which the eight team captains will choose whether to bid on a contestant by publishing information related to the contestant. Each contestant has a reserve price, and each bid must increase by at least 10,000 yuan. The highest bidder wins. If no one bids, the auction will fail.

The second round is a blind auction. The team leader writes down the bid price on a whiteboard and announces it, while the highest bidder wins. If the highest bids are tied, a second round of bidding ensues. If no one bids, the auction ends without a winner.

The third round is a timed bidding round. Each contestant has a high initial price, which will gradually decrease by 50,000 each round until it reaches 100,000. If no one bids at this price, the contestant is unsuccessful, and the team captain who raises their paddle first wins the contestant. If all contestants raise their paddles simultaneously, a round of open bidding will be held to determine the contestant's ownership.

The fourth round is a simultaneous blind auction, where more than one contestant may appear at the same time. The team captain writes down the price of each contestant they want on the board, and they reveal their cards together. However, note that bids cannot exceed your maximum funds, and throughout the auction, you must ensure that your remaining funds are sufficient to form a team of five (each contestant's minimum bid is 100,000); otherwise, the bid will be invalid.

The fifth round is an auction for unsuccessful bidders, conducted in an open auction format, with bidders who were not previously sold being auctioned off in order.

Overall, the rules are similar to previous editions, except that there are no substitutes or replacement players this year. The veteran captains are all very familiar with the process, and the new captain, Su Xiaoman, is also a long-time viewer and knows the auction rules inside and out.

The community is very enthusiastic about the annual Immortal Cup, after all, it is a rare offline tournament, and all the players are Chinese players, so there won't be no Chinese teams on the first day after buying offline tickets - currently many viewers are hesitant to watch international Dota 2 tournaments.

On Bilibili, some enthusiastic content creators have even started offering their opinions, posting a 20-minute video analyzing the reasonable price for each contestant and in which round the organizers might place each of them in the auction.

Regardless of its reliability, almost every team captain secretly watched the video, and viewers engaged in heated discussions in the video's comment section.

[This season is going to be pretty competitive. It's basically all retired professional players, plus a few high-ranking random players. It's sure to be a great match!]

Will we see Milk Bro's peak of wits and forced vacation again this time? Stay tuned!

[May, let's charge the brothers one more time!]

What's the use of the sun? Brother Pig, I support you!

[fgnb, don't embezzle too much money this time, okay? Charles said the person with the most leftover money must have some kind of intellectual problem.]

It's been a while since I've heard Brother Diao's post-match analysis; this time I'll get to hear it to my heart's content.

[Brother Jia has become the team leader! I feel like he might get overpowered during the auction. We need to find a strategist quickly.]

[My idol, stop playing Three Kingdoms Kill and think about how to film people instead.]